Rio Tinto and Glencore abandon revived $260bn merger plan

Rio Tinto and Glencore have abandoned plans for a $260bn merger, walking away from a deal that would have created the world’s largest mining company.Rio Tinto said it was no longer considering a “merger or other business combination” with Glencore after it “determined that it could not reach an agreement that would deliver value to its shareholders”.Glencore said the key terms of the potential offer, which would have seen Rio keep both the chair and chief executive roles, “significantly undervalued Glencore’s underlying relative value contribution to the combined group”.The company added the deal did not adequately value its copper business and growth pipeline, and concluded that the merger was not in the best interests of its shareholders.It marks the third time that talks to combine the two commodities giants have collapsed, after discussions were revived last month

Team GB chief predicts ‘most potent’ Winter Games ever with sights set on eight medals

Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics. Which makes the prediction of Eve Muirhead, Britain’s chef de mission at the Milano Cortina Games, rather extraordinary.“I believe that we are taking one of the most potent teams of athletes that we have taken to a Winter Olympic Games,” she says. “We have the capability to disrupt the norm.”That norm, between 1952 and 2010, was just 12 medals in 16 Winter Games

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for pork ragu with herbs (for gnocchi or pasta) | A kitchen in Rome

It’s 10.30am and steam carrying the smell of onions, beans, cabbage and braised meat escapes from the kitchen in the corner of box 37 on Testaccio market. In the small kitchen is Leonardo Cioni, a tall chef from San Giovanni Valdarno, midway between Florence and Arezzo, who, for the past three-and-a-half years, has run box 37 as Sicché Roba Toscana, which roughly translates as “therefore Tuscan stuff”. The escaping steam is effective advertising, leading eyes to the blackboard above the counter to discover exactly what is going on in the back.Always on the menu is lampredotto

‘One of the most stunning sights in the country’: your picks for UK town of culture

From pirates and skateboarders in Hastings to legends and locks in Devizes, from dolphins in Scarborough to the ‘artists’ town’ of Kirkcudbright, readers put forward their favourite placesCulture secretary Lisa Nandy has launched a search for the UK’s first “town of culture”, similar to the city of culture programme, which honoured Bradford last year. After the Guardian’s writers nominated theirs – including Ramsgate in Kent, Falmouth in Cornwall, Abergavenny in Monmouthshire and Portobello in Edinburgh – we asked readers which UK towns they would put forward.Culture in Hastings grows out of the shingle and the wind and the friction between past and present. You can feel it in the fishing fleet hauled up on the beach, still part of daily life, and then a short walk away in bold contemporary spaces showing work that speaks far beyond the town. It shows up in events that belong to the people who live there; Jack in the Green spilling through the streets; Pirate Day turning the whole place into a shared act of play; music competitions that quietly bring international talent into a town that never pretends to be grand

We need new drugs for mental ill-health | Letter

It is not only veterans and emergency workers living with post-traumatic stress disorder who could benefit if ministers heed the call from Sir Nick Carter (Ex-British army chief calls on ministers to back MDMA-assisted therapy for veterans, 1 February). Thousands of people who have major mental illness, and those dealing with bereavement and trauma, could be helped too.The shocking lack of progress in developing transformative psychiatric medicines, and a dearth of innovation has left clinicians with few weapons in their armoury to relieve mental pain. Families and people scarred by long-term distress tell us they are desperate for new treatments and therapies.At the Prince of Wales International Centre for Sane Research, our research centre in Oxford, we host clinical trials researching the medical use of innovative interventions such as esketamine and cannabidiol for psychiatric ill-health

Calls to halt UK Palantir contracts grow amid ‘lack of transparency’ over deals

Labour should halt public contracts with the US tech company Palantir, opposition politicians have said, amid growing concern at the lack of government transparency over dealings with the company and Peter Mandelson.Since 2023, Palantir has secured more than £500m in contracts with the NHS and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), while it employed Global Counsel, the lobbying firm founded by Mandelson. Emails released by the US Department of Justice show Mandelson sought help from Jeffrey Epstein to find “rich individuals” as clients.The government has for months blocked attempts by MPs and campaigners to scrutinise Palantir’s deals. Requests for information about meetings between the company’s leadership with Keir Starmer and the former prime minister Boris Johnson were among those that have been refused